Secrets of WeChat and Weibo Feed Stream

A post shared in Moments of a WeChat account, which has thousands of friends, could receive zero views. And, there is nothing wrong with that account that is active and works properly. Why?

Similar to the algorithm of Facebook feed stream, WeChat Moments has its own of determining which postings are shown. If your WeChat or Weibo account’s authority is downgraded by the system, information published could receive much less or no views no matter how many fans or followers you have attracted.

First, WeChat and Weibo marketers should know about “authority downgrade”, the limited display in information feeds. If being downgraded, the information you send out is limited by the official system while you may not be aware.

WeChat Moments Feed Stream

If one post is shared simultaneously in dozens of Moments, those accounts could get downgraded. Besides, simultaneous sharing of an HTML5 based article in Moments could lead to the block of this third-party domain on WeChat.

A common WeChat account can support up to about 5,000 friends. When exceeding 3,000 friends, the account will be downgraded and only 50% friends of this account can see the information it publishes in Moments.

Shared information in Moments containing words such as “red envelope”, “pay”, “transaction”,…could also get downgraded because WeChat does not quite support business activities in WeChat Moments, WeChat’s social networking section. Some of the micro-shop links can be shared but most are blocked in Moments.

An article getting shared for over 20,000 times can still be shared in Moments but some of the shares may not be shown.

A WeChat account, with WeChat Payment activated, can add more friends per day. Using third-party software, for faking current locations, auto-detecting and collecting red envelopes, and opening multiple accounts on the same device, could get the WeChat accounts blocked.

WeChat Official Accounts

WeChat official accounts, simply copying posts of others without the original content, will receive less exposure with the same amount of followers compared with an account publishing mostly original content.

WeChat encourages and supports the original content from Official Accounts. Certain accounts could have original content certification; but not new accounts. This is a hidden feature that requires the new accounts frequently publish original quality content to be activated.

Weibo Accounts

Weibo has also implemented certain algorithms to restrict and reduce exposure of certain posts:

Postings by personal or enterprise verified Weibo accounts with little engagement such as likes, shares, and reviews

Marketing and sales information could receive less views with certain keywords identified from the content by Weibo system